11 Responses to “The A-E-I thing (English as a Second Language Acquisition)”

This technique works with my German students, who are used to English (and quasi-English) terms invading the language.

I go through the alphabet with them, noting major mistakes. You're right, I can predict the mistakes before they make them and A, E and I always feature.

I start by srawing their attention to instances of the letter in their own language: "E for E-mail" is very easy to remember. I: Sometimes iPod is a good solution, sometimes I draw their attention to the easy sentence "I am German". Y is memorised by the song "YMCA", which is scarily well-known in my classes. After doing the first few for them, we go through the entire alphabet as a group, with me pronouncing the letters and them thinking of ways to remember them. The length of this exercise depends on the level of difficulty the group has with the English alphabet. When they then misprononounce a letter in a later class, I just need to mime the YMCA song or ask "Is that G for GI, of J for James Bond" to help them remember their list.

If the group need the alphabet (it is indispensable for students who telephone in English), I then practise regularly by getting them to spell words to me, where I write on the board exactly what they say. Sometimes Iask for an e-mail address to spell, sometimes I get a student to spell out an answer to a vocabulary quiz. It seems to work!

More seriously:- Do that thing where you get them to put the alphabet into columns by the vowel sound of each letter- Teach the magic E rule (an E after one consonant makes a short vowel sound like the name of its letter) as a way of reinforcing what that is and teaching a useful spelling rule- Lots of telephoning practice as a good excuse to practice spelling- Pairwork dictations- Get them to ask you for the spelling and give it orally before writing it every time- Spelling games, e.g.http://edition.tefl.net/ideas/writing-ideas/english-spelling-fun/

Are the a-pple,e-gg etc sounds useful? I help my Italian students to remember the vowels i and e (those which cause most confusion with Italian) with the internationally known ..i as in i-pod and e as in e-mail. Seems helpful in spelling when required for names, email addresses and so on.

I haven't run into spelling trouble with the adults I teach, but everyone pronounces the letter "i" as an "e", like it is in their own language. When that happens, I draw a circle around a small "i" on the board and maybe add some eyelashes. That reminds them of how to pronounce the darned thing.

I: "iTunes" for the younger ones, and for the older ones I motion with my hands, pointing to myself and making a heart and then point at them for "I love you". (Awwww.)

E: "e-learning" (etc.) for the younger ones. For the older generation: Point finger, connect to theirs, go "bing" and say in a pipsqueak voice "E.T. nachhause telefonieren!" Do that once and they'll be doing it forever.

A: I break into song and dance: "YMCA, it's always fun down at the YMCA" They decide I'm nuts and decide to get the learning done to get me out of the house.